How to License Your Music

Music licensing is basically like renting your music to other people. You keep all the copyrights but you allow other people to use your property (i.e. your songs). It’s mainly a pursuit for songwriters and composers so you can license your songs or instrumentals to other recording artists or you can make your songs and instrumentals available for licensing on TV shows, commercials, films and games and that’s what we call sync licensing.

Why would you want to license your music in the first place? Well licensing music is something you can do from home and at your own pace but there’s also another big reason to get into music licensing is that compared to other money making options available to indie musicians, licensing can be extremely lucrative and can generate recurring revenue.

In the video we show you exactly how lucrative music licensing can be, especially compared to music streaming, for example on Spotify or Apple Music. You can make far more money licensing your music than you ever could by streaming your songs to your fans on Spotify.

Are you an independent musician looking to make more money? Licensing your music is one of the best ways to generate an income from music, even if it’s early in your career. It’s also great for those looking to make music a second career or pursuing music in retirement because it can be done on your own time.

What is Music Licensing?

• How to create passive income with your music
• Metadata, keywords and tagging
• Strategies to maximize your success

How to License Your Music

Okay so now that we hopefully have got you excited about music licensing now what do you actually need to get started? One thing you need is the music, but you only need three or four tracks to get started. There’s this big myth around music licensing that you need hundreds or thousands of tracks to license your music and that’s simply not true. One of our students whom you will meet in the video has been able to make significant income from his small catalog of only 37 songs.

The other thing you need to get started is you need to register the songs you are going to license with a P.R.O., or a Performing Rights Organization before you submit your music for licensing to make sure you can collect your royalties. The PRO you choose will depend on which country you live in, but in the U.S. we have ASCAP, BMI and SESAC.

You also need to be able to export high-quality files like WAV files so when a music library asks you for high-quality files you’re able to deliver those. You also need to be able to provide metadata like keywords and other data to identify your tracks and make them stand out in search results – so that people will find your music and that your songs will be appealing to music libraries. We know from experience all different sorts of music gets licensed – so long as the production quality is up to industry standards.

The next thing you need is the right mindset for music licensing and the courage to send your music out to the world, and the determination to keep going even if you get turned down because you will get turned down. You also need the patience to do the boring stuff like emailing and researching but that is really how you stand out from the competition.

The last thing that you need in order to license your music is a plan so you can take matters into your own hands and make sure people hear your music – and that is where our webinars and online training comes in. We will teach you how to license your music so you will not have to depend on someone else to do it for you. We give you all the tools to get the work done yourself no matter what genre you write in or what your personal situation is – so even if you have kids and a full-time job we have a system for you and a framework that you can really tailor to your specific situation.

The cool thing about licensing via music libraries is that once you do the prep work and research and get your metadata in place, you will have done the hard work required for sync licensing and you will be set up to start to generate recurring revenue from your music. Contrast that with all the work you need to do to set up a single gig that you will only play once. That is the beauty and attraction of music licensing.

Do the math. 1,000,000 streams on Spotify will get you approximately $3,000 in royalties.

1 MILLION STREAMS ON SPOTIFY!

Can you even hit that target in a whole year?

I’m not even sure I could make it in TEN years!

Here are 6 different ways you could make $3,000 with music licensing. It might take you a whole year when you’re first starting out but it certainly won’t take you 10 years to get there!

Now doesn’t that seem much more achievable than 1 MILLION streams on Spotify?

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to licensing music.

They are many other projects that could use your music PLUS the sales prices above are fairly conservative (you’ll see that with Songtradr’s own pricing tool featured later in this post).

This is WHY you need to look into music licensing.

Now let me show you HOW to license your music.

The first thing I want to tell you is that you don’t need to know every single technical aspect of music licensing to start looking for music licensing opportunities.

In the rest of this post, I will explain the essentials (exclusive versus non-exclusive deals, synch fees versus performance royalties, the role of music libraries, etc.) BUT I want to focus my attention on getting you to actually start DOING something!

Trust me, you’ll learn much more by “doing” music licensing than you will ever learn just reading about it. Even if you feel you’re not “ready” yet, the key is to start!

If you want more guidance on how to license your music, check out this online training program called Get Your Music Licensed.

Want more licensing tips like this? Click here and get this free ebook.

So here it goes…

How to License Your Music: Get Your Music Ready for Licensing

1. Pick 3 to 5 Tracks From Your Catalogue & Export MP3 and WAV Files

If you’re not sure they’re good enough, try anyway. You’ll soon find out. There’s nothing that kills the musician’s ambitions quite like perfectionism.

Still, here are a few guidelines to keep in mind for successfully licensing music.

Songs and/or instrumentals are fine. Explicit lyrics very rarely are.
No samples! Apple loops and such are fine. Samples from other artists’ work or copyrighted speeches are not.
You should own the rights to the tracks you’re submitting. In case of co-authors, make sure you’re all on the same page and ok to seek out licensing opportunities.
Check with your publisher and/or label (if you have one) before you doing anything with your music, including look for licensing opportunities.

Export high quality MP3s (preferably 320kbps) and WAV files (preferably 24bit, 48kHz).

Note that I wrote “preferably.” Again, if for whatever reason you can’t export your songs in those formats, just pick the next best option available!

For example, an MP3 256kbps or a WAV 16bit, 44kHz).

Here are some basic guidelines to keep in mind when it comes to audio quality:

24 bit > 16 bit
320 kbps > 256 kbps > 128 kbps
WAV = AIFF > MP3
48kHz > 44kHz for any music that will be used on video (not in quality but simply because that’s the standard for TV/film)

2. Input Metadata

Make sure your audio files (MP3s and WAV) have the proper metadata attached to them.

This means that if you double click on the audio file and it starts playing in iTunes or whatever app you use to listen to your music, the following information will appear clearly and accurately:

Track name
Artist name
Album name
Genre
Recording or release date

If possible, add your email address in the “comments” or “additional information” section.

If you don’t know how to do this, I suggest researching “how to add metadata in iTunes” (or whatever system you’re using) in Youtube.

Audacity is a free tool you might also want to explore.

3. Create a Catalogue Spreadsheet

Take the time to create a spreadsheet or Word doc to track your catalogue.

Here is what it could look like:

Include the name of the song, the description and a bunch of keywords that will come in handy when you upload them onto music libraries. Assign each licensing opportunity it’s own column to keep track of where songs are placed.

For now, all you need is the column with the track titles really but you might want to anticipate and start thinking about descriptions and keywords.

4. Register Your Songs with a PRO

Always register songs you plan on licensing with a Performance Rights Organisation (PRO).

If you already know what a PRO is and have already registered your songs with yours, move on to step 3!

PROs are the organisations that ensure that you get paid royalties when one of your tunes is performed on radio, TV, etc.

In the US, that could be ASCAP or BMI. In the UK it’s PRS. SACEM is the one in France.

You only need to register with one. PROs around the world collaborate with each other to collect royalties in their territory and coordinate with other PROs to get the composers paid.

There’s no need to be fancy about it. Just register with the PRO of your choice.

Check out this list of PROs to find out the options in your part of the world and how to license your music there.

Conclusion – How to License Your Music

Now you have a super simple roadmap that will get you started in no time. The next step is to start researching music libraries and submit your music!

If you want more to learn how to license your music with more comprehensive licensing guidance, check out our online training program called Get Your Music Licensed.

The class is part of the online music business training offered at New Artist Model.

If you are interested in promoting your music, check out the Music Business Accelerator program (MBA).

Joyce Kettering is a songwriter, composer, music licensing expert, and teacher of the Get Your Music Licensed! program. The music licensing methods she teaches has allowed her to quit her day job at a Fortune 500 company and be successful on licensing alone.

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How to License Your Music – What is Music Licensing?